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Is anyone aware of a set of guidlines for analysing a piece to detirmine correct/usable fingering? There are very specific rules for scales, chords and arps but these are often not usable in real repertoire.

When working with a teacher, I find we spend quite a bit of time up front figuring out what is the best fingering for a new piece if it isn't marked. I believe that with the right instruction, even a novice should be able to figure this out on there own, but in all the reference material I have in my library, I haven't been able to find anything useful.

You're right about the importance of fingering. CPE Bach realized this and devotes a whole chapter in his 'Versuch' - though much would be regarded as old-fashioned now. He wrote a set of pieces for the book where every single note is fingered.

I have a small booklet (23 pages) by Thomas Knott called Pianoforte Fingering. There really isn't much around though, which is surprising considering how many books there are on other aspects.

I find myself looking at a piece of Piano music and if there's no indication of fingering I put it down, but there's so much music around without any indication of fingering that I assume the composer/arranger considers it unnecessary.

I googled "Pianoforte Fingering" and found some websites worthy of further study, I haven't got down to going through it yet myself though.

The standard way to do it is to determineat an early stage what the "best" fingeringis--mostly by feel and intuition, and also with reference to whatever printed fingering there might be--and then write it in and stick with it while working up the piece. This has the apparent advantage of enabling you to work somethingup quicker because you're using the samefingering each time you practice the piece--this is especially true in classical pianowhere you want to eventually memorize.

However, in my view it is not so straight-forward as that. First, what you determineto be the "best" fingering at that earlystage may not be the best fingering later,as you develop more strength and experienceand familiarity with the piece. Thisis especially true with more difficultpieces; with such pieces you may nothave the experience to determine whatis actually the best fingering.

If you're working with a teacher, evena very fine one, this may actually bea disadvantage rather than an advantageas far as fingering is concerned. Theteacher will of course give his inputas to the best fingering, based on hisexperience. And yet that experiencewill inevitably be from his perspectiveand his physiology and psychology. Thus,unless he's a clone of you, his philosophyof fingering has scant chance of reallyfitting you personally, and so you endup playing mostly with someone else'sfingering, and you're ultimately forcing your body and psyche to fit a mold that doesn't really fit. When you do this,something is going to give eventually,because your body and mind simply will not be able to tolerate such against-the-grain stress indefinitelyand will rebel in some way: you mayeventually give up on the piece as "toodifficult"; or you might injure yourself;or your interpretation may suffer sothat you end up "just playing the notes";or you may actually quit playing because"it's not enjoyable anymore"; and so forth.

Moreover, as you work on the piece youmight simply outgrow that early fingeringbecause your strength and experiencehave increased. And yet there willbe great resistance to changing thatfirst fingering because of all the timeyou've invested in it. Thus, people willtend to just stay with that first fingeringregardless, and to their detriment.

This is why I no longer look at printedfingering, unless all else fails. Ijust play without looking at my handswhen using the score and let my handsfind the best fingering and techniqueon their own. This way the fingeringI end up with will be the best one for myindividual physiology and psychology.Furthermore, the fingering will automaticallychange and adjust as I work up a pieceaccording to how I develop physicallyin the process. Working up a piece maybe slower this way because you're notusing the same fingering every timeyou play the piece, but in the longrun it's better because it will alwaysbe the fingering that is custom-tailoredto you personally.

When you do this, you might find that thefingering that your hands choose is strangeby conventional standards. For example,I just love crossing the 4th finger overthe 5th and will do it whenever I can. Ialso like to use the same finger onsuccessive notes, like Bb to A with4 4 rather than 4 3. I don't really liketo cross thumb-under and will avoidit whenever I can, preferring to simply"leap" with the whole hand instead. And so forth.